photo credit Fabio Marras
Couples may choose to get married in Italy for a host of reasons: because they met here or had their first trip together in Italy; because they have family here; because one of them is Italian; because they love the history, the culture, the music, the food and wine; because there are so many spectacular venues to choose from; because Italians do these things well!
Everything you need to know about getting married in Italy
Mostly, though, Italy is a destination for all the guests and they are going to jump at the opportunity to visit. They can come to the wedding and spend a few days here, maybe fitting in a few side-trips, wine-tastings or food tours while they’re at it!
Weddings in Italy: what kind of weddings are there and what is needed?
1) Civil weddings
Civil ceremonies are usually held in a town hall, often beautiful, historic buildings, or in other officially licensed venues.
Legally valid civil ceremonies:
- are performed by the mayor or a local council official unless you ask for a delega (meaning they are delegated to do the job) for your celebrant to officiate
- are performed in Italian
- require an official interpreter if either of you doesn’t speak Italian
- can only be conducted in a licensed venue
- consist of the official reading the articles of the law, which makes it quite impersonal
- even with the delega can only be personalised to a limited degree
- are subject to a time-limit depending on availability
- require a great deal of paperwork
- need to be legally transcribed back home
photo credit Claudio Cervelli
photo credit Assunta Sorrentino
2) Religious weddings
Italy legally recognises religious marriages for all faiths – non-Catholic Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu – but a civil ceremony must also be conducted for it to be legally valid.
Because of an agreement between the Vatican and the Italian state called the Concordat, however, at a Catholic wedding the civil ceremony is conducted by the priest inside the church immediately after the Catholic rite. In order to get married in a Catholic church, at least one member of the couple must be Catholic. Italy has an abundance of beautiful churches to choose from and they come in all sizes from beautiful small Romanesque chapels to imposing Baroque churches. Some are very popular and are difficult to book so it may be a good idea to have a wedding planner to help.
For couples who wish to avoid most of the paperwork but want to get married in a church in Italy they can do the civil one at home and then have the Catholic ritual of getting married in a church. However they will still require the documents required by the church, which are listed below. In any case, contacting their local priest is the first step in the process.
For more information on the Concordat, see here
3) Celebrant-led weddings
These weddings ceremonies are for couples who want to avoid the Italian bureaucracy and extra hassle of having to put together the right documents for a civil wedding and who also want complete freedom to have their wedding where they want without any restriction. Couples who choose a celebrant-led wedding (sometimes called a “symbolic wedding”) will do the legal marriage at the registry at home before coming to Italy for their wedding.
In our experience, they are no less meaningful than civil weddings and in fact, since couples can have the ceremony For more information on the Concordat, see here just the way they want, with complete personalisation, they are usually more moving and special than the more dry-cut civil wedding.
The best person to craft and conduct a wedding ceremony of this kind is a professional wedding celebrant since they are objective, trained, professional and know exactly what to do. Some couples, however, prefer a friend or family member to officiate their service.
What is a wedding celebrant?
A wedding celebrant is a professional who is not affiliated to any religion whose prime aim is to make your wedding ceremony unique and memorable. Celebrants who are members of FederCelebranti are all trained and experienced celebrants (there are many officiants working in Italy who are not).
After an initial no-strings-attached meeting with the couple to find out if they are a good fit, the celebrant will gather as much information about the couple and their relationship as they need to craft, draft and continue to work on the ceremony until it is absolutely right.
The celebrant will advise the couple on readings, music, symbolic rites, personal wedding vows, and every other feature of the ceremony and will liaise with the other professionals involved in the special day such as the wedding planner, photographer, videographer and DJ or musicians. If the couple wants, they will provide a beautiful parchment souvenir certificate for them and their witnesses to sign in front of the guests.
The celebrant will take care of every detail of the ceremony so that the couple can relax and concentrate on the important things: looking into one another’s eyes, saying their vows, and enjoying their day.
Why use a wedding celebrant in Italy?
- A wedding celebrant will craft a bespoke ceremony that is intimate, personalised and one-of-a-kind.
- A wedding celebrant will ensure that the ceremony is a reflection of the couple’s values and beliefs and will make their relationship and personalities their main focus.
- A wedding celebrant will allow to blend together languages, cultures, traditions and rituals that are important to both individuals in the couple.
- A wedding celebrant will guide you throughout the process of creating a unique wedding ceremony and guarantee that everything goes exactly as the couple want it.
- A celebrant-led wedding ceremony can be non-religious, non-traditional wedding with a strong sense of ritual.
The services and requirements of a professional celebrant are laid out in the two parts of the Reference Practice and Guidelines UNI/PdR 118: 2021 published by the Ente Italiana Normazione. EU-wide certification is available, approved by Accredia, the Italian national accreditation board.
Getting married in Italy: what documentation will I need?
For a legally valid civil wedding you will need to prepare the following paperwork well in advance. It is recommended that you start planning at least a year in advance.
This list is taken from the Citizen Service section of the US Embassy in Italy website. You can download an affidavit here.
- A valid passport or national ID card for both parties.
- Original birth certificate for both parties or certified copy.
- Divorce papers or death certificate if you have been divorced or widowed (a woman whose previous marriage ended less than 300 days before the planned wedding will need a waiver from the Italian District Attorney’s Office, Procura della Repubblica presso il tribunale)
- An affidavit or Statutory Declaration, known as a nulla osta, or dichiarazione giurata sworn before a consular office of your home country, stating that there’s no legal impediment to your marriage in your home country
- An atto notorio signed by two witnesses confirming no legal impediment to your marriage (the witnesses must not be members of your family)
- A declaration of intent to marry that will go to the civil registrar
If you are UK citizens wanting to get legally married in Italy, you can download a Certificate of No Impediment Application Pack for Opposite-Sex and Same-Sex Marriage, prepared by The Italy Consular Network, as well as a bilingual Statutory Declaration from here
The following Embassy sites will give you more information:
- Australia:
o Australian Embassy in Rome
o Embassy of Italy in Australia - Canada:
o Embassy of Canada to Italy
o Embassy of Italy in Canada - United Kingdom:
o British Embassy in Rome
o Embassy of Italy in Great Britain
Ireland:
o Embassy of Ireland in Italy
o Italian Embassy in Dublin - United States:
o The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Italy
o Italian Embassy in Washington
For a Catholic wedding you will also be required to present the following documentation and you will need to start planning at least a year in advance.
- certificates of baptism, confirmation and first communion;
- attendance certificate for a marriage preparation course;
- a prenuptial inquiry issued by the archdiocese of your hometown;
- a written letter containing permission from your Priest or Pastoral Advisor;
- Nihil Obstat, a letter of no impediment to marry from the Bishop of your home Parish;
- if one of the partners isn’t Catholic, a mixed religion marriage approval;
- if the priest doesn’t perform the civil part of the marriage, a civil wedding certificate showing that you’re legally married.
NB: All these documents must be sealed and stamped by the Bishop’s office.
How much do these wedding documents cost?
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| A revenue stamp for nulla osta | €16 |
| A revenue stamp for the atto notorio | €16 |
| An application for the atto notorio | €10.62 |
| An application for the nulla osta | € 40 |
What do I have to do to get married legally in Italy? A possible timeline
- Contact your country’s consulate in Italy for advice on how to get hold of specific documents.
- Consider the type of wedding ceremony you want.
- Book your wedding venue in Italy (for popular venues, you will need to do this at least a year ahead).
- Apply for a visa (if required).
- Apply for your birth certificates if you don’t have them.
- Prepare your divorce papers or death certificate (if required).
- Apply for nulla osta in your country’s consulate in Italy or in the Italian consulate in your country.
- Get an atto notorio sworn by two witnesses.
- Submit your declaration that you intend to get married to the local marriage office (ufficio matrimoni) where your wedding ceremony will take place.
- Contact the town hall or licensed venue where you have chosen to get married.
- Choose your witnesses.
- If one of you doesn’t speak Italian, hire an interpreter.
- Plan your guest list, book your accommodation and start getting your ceremony ready
- At the wedding, you’ll sign your legal marriage licence and receive an official marriage certificate.
Or have a celebrant-led ceremony and save yourself a lot of red tape!
Having gone through these lists, you will appreciate why we strongly recommend choosing a celebrant to create and officiate your ceremony in the venue of your choice. It will allow you total freedom and you will not need any of these documents!
Coming to Italy, typically you will be choosing between different options for your wedding.
- You may be looking for a venue where you can have a big wedding with a hundred or more guests in a beautiful garden, castle or historic villa. There is an endless array of places where this is possible and our celebrants will be able to talk you through the various options available throughout the regions of Italy.
- You may want a small gathering, with just selected family and friends, which means you may be looking for a small, intimate venue with a celebrant to help you craft a perfect micro-wedding.
- You may be planning an elopement, with just the two of you, a celebrant and a photographer, which means you’ll be looking for somewhere with an amazing backdrop to your ceremony, in any one of Italy’s historic towns or beautifully landscaped beaches, gardens or lakes.
A perfect celebrant-led wedding without the red-tape; the advantages of symbolic wedding ceremonies
In all three of these options, you will probably have done your paperwork back home and be legally married before you come to Italy. The advantages of this are enormous, as you can cut all the red tape and you are perfectly free to craft the ceremony of your choice together with your celebrant.
Moreover, you won’t have to go through the lengthy process of translating and transcribing the legal papers when you get back home.
As celebrants, we strongly recommend signing your marriage licence with just a couple of witnesses back home and then planning the ceremony of your dreams here in Italy without the hassle of the quite heavy-duty bureaucracy involved in a civil or religious marriage in Italy.
Can a same-sex couple get married in Italy?
Same-sex civil unions are legally valid in Italy, and follow the same rules as other civil ceremonies. The unione civile as it is called, is not legally recognised as “marriage” in Italy but it bestows all the same fundamental rights as any other civil ceremony (tax unification, inheritance, pensions etc) on the couple.
Again, despite the narrow wording of the law, a celebrant can create a ceremony for a same-sex couple that truly reflects the reality of your commitment to get married.
What is more, if you have a celebrant-led ceremony, then you are free to choose the words you want to have the wedding of your dreams!
Ten special Italian wedding traditions to incorporate into a wedding ceremony
Italy has a host of wedding traditions that vary from region to region and even from town to town. Some are leftovers from a distant past when marriage marked a change in status and often when the bride moved into orbit of the bridegroom’s family and lost ties with her own. This is no longer true as many couples will already be living together before their wedding. Like with all traditions, couples can use them and create new meanings and it can be fun to use ones like these.
Some traditions to look out for include:
- Serenata: the bridegroom with a group of friends playing instruments, or alone with a guitar or mandolin, stands under the bride’s window the night before the wedding and sings a love song (hopefully in tune!).
- Bomboniere: a small bag containing an odd number (usually five) sugar-coated almonds, known as confetti. These are given to guests as a wedding favour. The almonds represent health, wealth, fertility and long life.
- Bouquet: according to tradition, the bride throws the bouquet – the last gift from her fiancé before getting married – to the unmarried girls in the wedding party. The girl who catches the bouquet will be the next to marry.
- No gold: it is believed that any gold other than the wedding ring, brings bad luck.
- Choose your day: Friday and Tuesday weddings are considered bad luck. The saying goes: né di venere né di marte non si sposa né si parte (be sure not to get married or set off on a journey on either Tuesdays or Fridays). Sundays bring good luck, fertility and prosperity.
- Rice: traditionally, rice was thrown at the couple as they exited the ceremony. The rice symbolised fertility. Nowadays, people often prefer rose petals or olive leaves.
- Cutting the tie: the groom’s tie is cut off into strips and sold off at auction to finance the couple’s honeymoon.
- Tarantella: a dance representing the frenzied motions when bitten by a tarantula spider is common in the south. People hold hands and move clockwise, getting faster and faster as the music speeds up and then changing direction. In the Puglia region, a music and dance style called pizzica is also very popular.
- Iron: the groom might go to the ceremony with a small piece of iron in his pocket. The expression “tocca ferro” is like our “touch wood”.
- Garter: the bride wears a garter made from a swatch of her wedding dress. She may reveal the garter, worn above her knee, during her first dance. She might also cut up her veil to give to her bridesmaids and other friends.
Which Italian regions are the best ones for weddings?
Italy is renowned for so many of its regions that it would be impossible to say which are the best for a destination wedding.
Italy boasts literally thousands of miles of coastland, and each locality has its own flavour and personality, specialities of food and wine, and particular traditions. Liguria, Sorrento and the Costiera amalfitana, the world-famous Sicilian localities of Taormina and Scopello, the much-prized Sardinian beaches, the highly popular Apulia region, and of course, the coast and islands around Venice.
The northern lakes, Como, Garda, and Lago Maggiore, with their ferries criss-crossing to islands and coastal towns are hot on the tails of the coastal towns for wedding popularity.
And the mountains are becoming more popular, too: not only the Alps and the Dolomites, but also many of the small towns dotted along the Apennines.
And this is without even mentioning the historic cities and their surrounding regions: Rome and the Lazio region, Florence and the whole of Tuscany, Perugia and nearly every hill-top town in Umbria, Naples and much of the Campania region, including the islands of Capri and Ischia, the city of Venice and the Veneto region with its stately villas.
In Italy, there’s a phrase which sums the situation up very well: “l’imbarazzo della scelta”, which means “spoiled for choice”. There are so many potential wedding venues in Italy from castles, estates, villas, hotels, hamlets, and restored farmhouses and they range from very high-end to inexpensive. Naturally, the most sought-after places in places like Tuscany, the Amalfi Coast, and the northern lakes cost a lot more than lesser-known places such as Abruzzo and the Marches.
Couples who are thinking of coming to Italy to get married have an infinite number of choices; it’s important that they select the one that suits their personality as a couple and feels right (as well as suiting their budget), and coming to Italy to scout venues can be fun!
Are weddings expensive in Italy?
Comparatively speaking, a wedding in Italy is actually a really good deal. There are so many incredible venues, either just for your reception or where you can spend a few days with all your guests and hold your celebrant-led ceremony. You will be served the most amazing food, enjoy high-end wines and other drinks, and hire the services of incredible professionals for a fraction of the cost in some other countries.
In her blog, wedding planner Elisa Feder breaks down the average costs (depending on the number of guests and the venue you have chosen) of the main items on your wedding checklist.
| Item | Approximate cost |
| Celebrant | € 500 – € 850 |
| Wedding Planner | € 2,000 – € 8,000 |
| Venue | € 2,000 – €15,000 |
| Photographer | €1,000 – €4,000 |
| Decorations | € 4,000 – €20,000 |
| DJ | € 500 – €1,500 |
| 5-course meal (including cake and wine) | € 100 – € 170 |
Some of you may also decide to go down the do-it-yourself route with just a celebrant in a rental villa with a garden or a farmhouse-style getaway – known as agriturismi – where the food and wine is often locally sourced, everything is zero kilometre and eco-friendly, and you have total freedom over how you celebrate your special day.
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